Bah, Humbug

The events of 1978 and the subsequent few years resulted in a strange phenomenon, although a thousand things were happening in my life, my diary pages became blank.

I have a brief few months of diary in 1982 and a full return to a journal in 1984, which, for someone like me with a mind like a sieve, is very welcome to drag back moments from that year.


The end of 1983 following the strike was a period of turmoil in the design office, we also moved from the "old" engineering building into the front offices. Apparently, full circle as we returned to the original drawing office.

It certainly wasn't as cosy as the old office, quite drafty in fact, and the few days before Christmas were basically spent finding out where our binders had disappeared to.

A group of the APPH guys went to the pub, to celebrate the end of another year, as usual, two, even three pints had been consumed and it seemed like the moment to get back to work. A couple left but a core of about ten of us, including our union guy, Bob Pearce, looked at each other. We asked Bob if he thought it appropriate to "have one more" and he shrugged, we took that as a yes.

It was the last day after all, and when we all strolled into the office 40 minutes late, our Technical Manager, Ken Hayter had all of the culprits file into his office for a lecture and a veiled threat, he was going to do something very bad to us, however, he was not going to tell us what, until January when we returned.